


Hearts will hold

by InsidiousIntent



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/F, F/M, M/M, Michael Guerin does not make good life choices, and this is a study, implied infidelity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-15
Updated: 2019-06-15
Packaged: 2020-05-12 12:49:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19229476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsidiousIntent/pseuds/InsidiousIntent
Summary: He never falls out of love, but he thinks he definitely falls in love, actually.





	Hearts will hold

**Author's Note:**

> A huge thanks to [estel_willow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/estel_willow/pseuds/estel_willow) for being a muse, and a cheerleader, and a beta. I honestly would not be writing without her support. Any other mistakes are all mine. 
> 
> Additional credit to [chasingshadows](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chasingshadows/pseuds/chasingshadows) because she is to blame for this angstception. 
> 
> To my T3 club, your love and encouragement keeps me going!

* * *

 

(This is how it starts.

Michael is stuck at Sanders working on a hotshot driven into the ground by a 19 year old daddy’s girl. He knows he’s late and he will definitely be late for dinner tonight. He tries to work even faster but the car needs a lot of attention right now.

He is absolutely late for dinner, and finds a note on the kitchen counter _AT THE WILD PONY, FEED YOURSELF COWBOY_ and he feels guilt crawl up his spine. He eats quickly and efficiently, and does his best to clean up the day’s tedium.

Alex is well on his way to being wasted when Maria calls, and he gets to the Pony just after last call and meets Maria holding on to a listing Alex at the door. When Alex stumbles into his arms, he barely catches him by the waist, rubs flailing arms distractedly. Maria smiles at him and it’s a little like a spark flaring; Michael hides his grin in Alex’s hair. The bar’s door closes and Michael helps Alex into the truck.

He dreams of long hair and sparkling jewelry)

Their bed smells of Alex's shampoo and it's wonderful, it's comfortable, it's so very _warm_ –

it's nothing like the way he knows he sometimes looks at Maria.

\--- 

They kiss during a silly party game, and it’s a breath of fresh air tracing someone else’s mouth.

Later, after the whispers of _oh_ and _shit_ and _what is this?_ the guilt will push the thrill back, just barely.

In his mind, he makes a list of things he thinks he could love about Maria - the curve of her body, her unflinching strength, her legs holding him tight - after their third time.

He stashes it next to the list of things about Alex he will forever adore, but never says.

He never falls _out_ of love, but he thinks he definitely falls _in_ love, actually.

___

They finally talk about it on a Tuesday, forty nine days _later._

Alex is focused on his work, Lockheed is a great but extracting employer. His fingers fly on the keyboard, and Michael tries to breath in time with the press of keys.

“Do you ever -” he starts off without planning his words, “do you ever wonder if it’s possible to be in love with more than one person?”

“Of course” Alex’s eyes don’t move from the screen.

“Alex,” Michael tries again, “ _Alex_ ” and there must be something in his voice, because Alex’s whole body freezes, and he slams the laptop close.

“Who?” he asks and _shit_ Michael didn’t want to do this right now.

“I’m-I…,” he starts but how could Michael explain this? Where does he start with something like _this_? So he goes with the truth.

“Maria.”

Alex closes his eyes and exhales hard. Michael hasn’t seen him do that in a very long time. Not since Jesse Manes. And the Air Force.

“I see,” Alex says, his voice cold and hard. His hands flex hard and Michael think he might throw his laptop, or hit something - but Alex just digs his nails into his palms.

“I used to believe the truth was important,” he says quietly.

Michael closes his eyes and presses his hands to them, hard. The tears don’t stop, and he hopes there are bruises on his face as evidence of the pain. He wants to say _I’m sorry Alex_ and _I didn’t think this would happen to us_ but all he can manage is silence.

“I guess your truth set you free, Guerin,” Alex doesn’t look at him when he talks. Michael puts on his boots and tries to make no sound at all when he leaves.

When he returns to the cabin late that night, he is not surprised to find 2 full boxes of his clothes and equipment carefully packaged and closed tight. He leaves his copy of the cabin keys in the mailbox.

_____

Max stops by three days later and tells him that the regular Sunday dinners are on hold because Liz doesn’t want to see him. Michael just nods and says he understands, doesn’t know if his hands are shaking from relief or disappointment.

Liz and Isobel never call, and the devastation envelopes both Michael and Maria. They spend a weekend full of tangled limbs and muttered reassurances and don't think about whether it's supposed to be so difficult, _this_.

There are good days, when Michael presses kisses against Maria’s stomach and it’s soft and welcoming. He thinks how normal and easy life is like _this_. Days when he remembers how she likes her tea, and she smiles into his shoulder. Days when he wakes up with her arms around him and the soft rising sun in his eyes.

There are a few weeks when he thinks, _yes this is it, right here_. Six weeks, maybe seven, before he catches Maria mumbling Isobel’s name in her sleep and wonders if that also makes sense.

___

They never talk about how their lips and fingers only say _maybe_ into each other’s skin. It’s a breakfast on a Tuesday when doubt finally shows up, hanging heavy on their heads. Roswell is washing up in pouring rain like it hasn’t seen all year, and it’s so apropos that Michael wants to run and hide in his bunker.

“I love you,” Maria says, and Michael doesn’t want to say how catastrophically _bad_ the timing is. “I’ve loved you for a long time.”

“Me too,” Michael manages to say through a completely dry mouth. “It doesn’t look like it’s enough though, is it?”

“Where is the romance in your life?” Maria asks and winces slightly.

Michael thinks about long nights in the desert on his truck bed, gazing at the stars, and sighs. “I was never romantic.”

Maria nods like this is the truth and she knows it.

___  
  
Michael lets himself think about Alex a lot more after that.  
___

At Isobel’s birthday party, Michael wears a clean pair of jeans and an almost new shirt. Isobel still hasn’t acknowledged him, but she is his sister, so he will keep trying. He doesn’t bring Maria. He doesn’t ask her to come, and they both know it’s better this way.

Valenti claps him on the back with a stiff hard hand, and Michael feels the disapproval and disdain even before he sees Valenti’s lips set thin.

“I’m having drinks with Alex and his _boyfriend_ later,” Isobel says and it’s so bitter that Michael wants to mention Maria out of spite. He doesn’t though. Michael isn’t a good man, but he desperately wants to be.

___

(This is how it ends -

A brush of fingers and a duffel bag full of clothes, whispers of regrets but not mistakes. Maria tells him she refuses to turn them into something shameful.

“It’s only time,” she says, “it’ll pass.”

Michael looks at her and whispers Isobel’s name, watches her eyes widen. He knows his shame is already too deep to erase, his guilty verdict written on the faces of everyone who cares about him.

She looks relieved when he doesn’t disagree.)

___

Max buys him a truck load of alcohol and Michael thinks it’s probably not a great idea to go to a bar in Roswell. Every time he sees a flash of high cheekbones and dark hair his stomach clenches. In the corner of his eye and at every street corner, he sees scenes of a life he thought he’d have. It is so painful now, relearning to move in familiar places.

“I don’t think you’ve been happy for months now,” Max says and holds a hand to his shoulder. He looks at Max and thinks of the way he looks at Liz and tries very hard not to think of _before_. It doesn’t matter whether it’s Alex or Maria, both names bring up bile in the back of his throat.

“I know.”

___

There are traces of _I miss him everyday_ at every stoplight, at every cafe, and in every face in Roswell. For half a second Michael thinks he would have been happier if he had gotten out of this damn town.  

It takes him six weeks to call Isobel, another three pass before Isobel returns his call.

___

There is a party and everyone's invited. Max has never been very good at diplomacy or subtlety but Michael lets it slide. Isobel smiles at him when he arrives and something loosens in his chest. He sees her arm around Maria’s waist and feels relief that some things are on the path of getting where they should be.

“I don’t think Alex is bringing Trevor,” is the sum total of his interaction with Maria that evening. Michael tries to feel anything other than a hopeful pleasure at the back of his throat, but he can’t. His mouth refuses to form the words _Alex and Trevor_ and the concept is so foreign to him that he doesn’t even bother.

It is much later that he actually approaches Alex, making sure there’s enough whiskey and acetone in his system that he is forced to walk on his tiptoes around the furniture.

“Hi.”

Alex barely nods, but his whole body goes stiff when Michael pulls up another deck chair and takes a seat next to him.

Michael clears his throat, “I-” and dear _god_ he really should have thought this out more, “I wanted to talk to you.” He doesn’t say _I didn’t think you wanted to_ but from Alex’s face it was clear the thought crossed his mind. Alex takes a slow pull of his beer and presses back into the deck chair.

“I’m afraid I’ll say something stupid like I miss you, y’know?”

“But I do miss you, Alex,” before he can think too much about this conversation, hand inching closer to Alex’s, “I _miss_ you.”

Alex pulls his crutch closer and gets out of the deck chair, walking away from him and to the indoors and the party.

“I don’t know what to do what with that anymore, Guerin.”

___

Suddenly it feels like Alex is everywhere, but maybe he always was. Michael just couldn’t see.

___

His relationship with Isobel improves at a snail’s pace, but it continues to improve. Sunday dinners are back on his calendar and even though Liz is still frosty around the edges with him, he appreciates her consistent kindness. The tight band around his chest keeps loosening, and seeing Maria and Isobel’s brushing fingers and soft smiles gives him a measure of peace. He didn’t fuck everything up.

Isobel stops throwing around Trevor’s name like a casual punishment at every group gathering, and on one such occasion a tipsy Alex assures him that he didn’t break up with Trevor because of Michael. Michael knows that’s very likely true; he erased his own importance in Alex’s life.

___

At least now he has no excuses to not get drunk every night. The Pony is no longer the haven he thought it was, so he ends up wasted on whiskey and acetone in the junkyard often. Other times it’s at Max’s with Isobel and Max wisely letting him walk down this path of self-destruction.

Alex is there one night.

“I have a list, that I never told you about,” Michael says, three acetone laced drinks loosening his tongue.

“I hope ‘I’m sleeping with your childhood friend’ is not on it anymore,” Alex still sounds a little bitter but his edges are smoothed by a soft smile.

There’s a half-empty bottle of tequila balanced precariously at the edge of the truck bed, and Michael pulls the bottle to him and takes a big gulp, relishing the burn.

“No,” he says slowly but with purpose. Alex needs to know this is _important_. “List of things I loved about you. Dumb stuff.”

They are sitting close enough that when he shifts, his arm brushes Alex’s elbow.

“What kind of dumb stuff?”

“Just -” he watches his fingers flex around the neck of the bottle, trying to frame the words right in his acetone dulled brain. “Like how you drive an extra 25 miles out of your way every Thursday because you know Valenti is pulling a 28 hour shift and bring him a full meal.”

“Things like that?” Alex’s voice has gone low.

“Things like that,” Michael replies and looks up into his eyes.

Alex closes his and releases a deep breath. The deja vu threatens to bowl him over, but Michael manages to keep still.

“I promised myself that I would do something spontaneous and stupid today,” Alex looks at him and then quickly moves close, placing a soft chaste kiss on his lips.

Michael manages to catch the scent of Alex’s skin before he leaves. He doesn’t know how he forgot that taste, that smell.

___

When they were seventeen and  _desperately_  in love,Michael had woken up with Alex in his bed, the after-taste of sex on his skin, in his mouth; mumbled his fears of _fucking this up completely_ softly against his hair.

Alex had interrupted him with kisses and _we don’t need to promise each other anything, Guerin._

__

Michael finds the courage to drive back out to the cabin on a Tuesday. He makes it all the way to the door before he remembers he doesn’t have a key now.

His hands shake and it takes him a full five minutes before he can make a fist to knock. Another five minutes go by before he can actually get his arms to move. With the first movement of the door he hears the melody of _The Good, the Bad, and the Dirty_ and almost smiles at the return of goth Alex.

“That’s another thing,” he says to the small gap in the doorway, “another thing I love about you. That you never stopped loving your emo-goth music.”

Alex swings the door open but stands in the way; everything about him screams familiar warmth to Michael until his notices the hand holding his crutch so tightly the knuckles have turned white. Alex’s entire body is one tight coil of tension that is a completely foreign territory for Michael.

“Maria also a fan of Panic! At the Disco?”

Michael almost blurts out _I have no idea,_ his hands twitching to circle around Alex’s waist, but he keeps them by his side, wiping the sweat on his jeans.

“I think - I think I forgot about a lot,” he starts, “I think I forgot everything.”

Alex’s eyes are glassy. “Everything?” he asks on an exhale

“Definitely you. And I think...I forgot how things start. How _we_ started.”

He can see Alex struggling and biting his cheek.

“It wasn’t how I thought it would be,” Michael says and digs his nails into the lines of his palm.

Alex rolls his neck to the side but his eyes stay staring. Intent. His words are clipped.

“Isn’t _everything_ that way with you?”

“I went so long without anyone expecting things of me, I never learned how to live with expectations,” he says instead.

“Then it’s time you learned, Guerin.”

He winces when the door shuts in his face, but stands there with eyes on the ground until he hears the lock click.

___

It’s almost November and the months have been so long without Alex.

Isobel and Maria go on a long weekend trip to Santa Fe.

___

He’s been standing in the doorway telling Alex about all the things he listed and never shared for four weeks before Alex steps away and lets him inside. Michael sits at the kitchen counter desperately tries not to verbally vomit apologies. Alex rounds the other side of the counter and exhales a sigh.

“Here’s the thing. I’ll get domestic and boring, and you’ll be restless because you are impatient.”

“What if we both know better now?" 

“Do we really?” Alex raises his eyebrows. Michael’s skin feels tight and his breathing shallows, he itches with the need to scratch until nothing is left but _please_ and _let me try again._

“I won’t make promises,” he says instead. “I’d rather prove that I never look away.”

He sees Alex try and fail at hiding his smile, eyes going to the door and back to him.

“I thought you said you won’t make promises,” and it sounds like a speech from a long time ago that Michael still remembers.

Alex’s eyes roam over his hands, his jacket, the countertop before returning to this face. He feels their breathing syncing, as the seconds tick by and the silence gets longer, deeper, more comfortable between them.

“I won’t be able to handle any more surprises, Guerin,” Alex says and looks him right in the eyes.

Michael swallows every reassurance that tries to burst through his lips.

“I know, darlin.’”

Another eternity passes as Alex stares at him (or maybe it’s only a few seconds, Michael can’t tell anymore).

“Okay.”

“Okay? Really?”

“Yes, Michael.”

Michael gets out of his chair, and closes the distance between them.

___

This is where there are no ends, only beginnings.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Come cry about all things malex with me on [Tumblr](https://insidious-intent.tumblr.com/)


End file.
